Yorkshire Wildlife Park
We had a great (and exhausting) day at the wildlife park!
Roller Coaster Engineers
Yesterday morning, we were joined by some students from Leeds University who helped us become roller coaster engineers.
We were given some basic equipment and had to make a marble rollercoaster that involved twists, loop-the-loops and it had to end with the marble landing in a plastic cup.
We had a great time designing and making our roller coasters and would like to thank Leeds University for sharing their expertise with us.
Allerton Grange
This morning, we were lucky enough to go to Allerton Grange for a PE lesson. We enjoyed practising our hockey, football and netball skills under the guidance of the Year 11 junior sports leaders.
Here’s a few pictures of us in action…
Some great Maths learning!
Each week, Year 6 do Guided Maths which gives us an opportunity to work in small groups and revise learning from earlier this year and even Year 5. It means we’re always revisiting our learning either on our own or with adult support.
Last week, we revised angles and the group on our Maths Challenge Table produced some brilliant independent work.
Rollercoasters
On Thursday 09 March, Year 6 had a wonderful time with visitors from Leeds University as part of both national STEM week and our Time Travel – Entertainment topic. Our visitors talked to us about how rollercoasters work, discussing the gravitational and kinetic energy involved and how they conserve energy. (This means the amount of energy stays the same but it is transferred into different types.)
Once we understood the science, we were tasked with creating our own rollercoasters using half foam tubes as the track and a marble as the carriage. We got more points if we could create loop the loops, corkscrews or jumps and even more if we could land the marble in a cup at the end!
Take a look at some of our incredible rollercoasters and some fab teamwork.
The winning team got a whopping 70 points: three loops, one corkscrew, a jump and a cup landing!
Scratch Projects
Recently, as part of our ‘Time Travel: Entertainment‘ topic we’ve been creating our own games using Scratch. Each game is loosely based on Pac-Man and we’ve spent the last few weeks planning, designing, creating and improving our projects.
The children have worked extremely independently and have taught me a lot about using the Scratch software – I still have a long way to go to catch up with them, though. I’ve been most impressed with how the children have helped each other over the course of making these games. Like most things, some of us are more confident than others and we’ve worked really well as a team to make sure that everyone is involved and learning all the time.
Similarly, I’ve been super impressed that lots of us have gone home and created our Pac-Man style games using our personal Scratch accounts. These games have been really useful as a teaching tool because we could see a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like).
Good work, Year 5!
Houses and homes yoga
Today we had a topic yoga session incorporating lots of yoga poses while thinking of fictional homes, animal homes and homes from around the world. Our relaxation at the end of the session is always a favourite and another way to keep calm.
Keeping calm
Our SEAL statement this week is I keep calm or help others to calm down.
The children had some great ideas for how to calm down if they were cross, angry, upset, over excited or another time they might feel overwhelmed with emotions.
Ask them to explain how the following methods can help them.
- Taking deep breaths
- Fist flowers
- Doing a calming activity such as going for a walk or reading a book
We often take some time after lunch to have a lie down, listening to calming music to relax and prepare for the afternoon.
To support this at home, the children made their own mind bottles. The idea behind the bottles is to shake it up and watch how it settles… rather like our minds!
Team players
Today, as part of our learning about our current SEAL theme (Getting On), we thought about what the ‘perfect’ team player would look like. We thought about our strengths as individuals – of which we have many – and then combined them to make the ultimate team player.
Ask your child…
- What did we decide was really important?
- Is there anything you would add to the list?
- Which of these attributes is most important/least important?
- Which of these things do you consider to be a strength of yours?
- Which of these do you think you’re not so good at yet? (The ‘yet‘ bit of this question is really important because, with practice, they will become good at this.)
We think the ‘perfect’ team player would have these attributes…
A good team player would ask him/her self…
West Yorkshire cross country finalist
Congratulations to Grace who this week achieved 14th place in the Leeds Primary Schools cross country final at Middleton Park out of over 100 runners in her Year 5 girls race.
This means Grace has now qualified to represent Leeds at the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam. A fantastic achievement!
If Grace has inspired you to give running a try, why not take part in the local weekly Junior Park Run at Roundhay Park.